


This Should Not Be So

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, Fractured Fairy Tale, Gen, POV First Person, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Robber Bridegroom revisited, Shapeshifting, unnamed narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I think he’s a robber bridegroom.</p>
<p>They say I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I know what I see, even if they refuse to. It cannot be so, it should not be so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Should Not Be So

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amo_amare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amo_amare/gifts).



I think he’s a robber bridegroom.

They say I don’t know what I’m talking about. Cain is a fine man, an honest man. He works hard and takes care of his family. He donates money to the poor, goes to church every Sunday and helps out when he can. His skin is dark as coal and his eyes shine bright like fires in his face. They say I don’t like him because of how he looks, because I’ve got a heart of evil inside my chest. I don’t know how to answer that, because I don’t have fancy words like they do. I work hard to say the ones I know right, to seem like the lessons they had to give me took. I have to look grateful all the time, because I was a foundling child and they didn’t have to take me in.

I’ve seen him in the dark, knife in hand and eyes shining like fires. I’ve seen him creep low to the ground, heading for the houses of the richest in town. Why move like that? Why creep below window level, moving fast, going around the back way? Is stealing how he gets the money he gives to the church? I’ve told Tante Estelle about things like this before, and each time she sent me to bed without supper for lying. I’m not lying about that. I wouldn’t. They hate me enough for being a foundling, and being a foundling that lies would only leave me double damned.

“You’re pretty enough, I suppose,” Tante Estelle tells me one day. “They won’t mind lack of a dowry and no family backing if you play up your looks.” Of course there are complaints that I don’t stand straight enough, I don’t try to wear brighter colors to play off my dusky skin color, I don’t weave enough decoration into my hair like the other girls. They think me strange for this, for the care I’ve taken to help the stable hands or sharpen tools. I find that more interesting than kitchen talk or cooking, but Tante Estelle says it’s the evil in my heart that makes it so. I’m not a proper girl in her eyes, but I’ve stopped trying to be one a long time ago.

“There isn’t much use for looks in the stables,” I told Tante Estelle. I haven’t told her about the riding or dressing like a stable boy to walk about at night without being noticed. I already know she would think me afflicted and evil.

Tante Estelle wrinkles her nose at me, but doesn’t condemn the help I’ve given the stable hands. I’ve told her it prevents me from being idle, because there’s too much work to do, and the other girls in the orphanage do the sweeping and house work. She knows it’s true, so she can’t deny me the tasks. “You can do better than a stable boy if I play up your features right. Your light eyes and darker skin are striking. You could make a good match.” She gives me a smile. “Not bad for a foundling.”

I want to shout at her that I’m not worthless just because my birth parents didn’t want me. I’m not stupid just because I don’t want to bend to her ways. I don’t like her words or deeds, how she praises a man like Cain for what he says in town but can’t believe the fact that he creeps about like a thief in the night. I give her a smile and go along with her plans because it’s easier than arguing when I won’t win. That means less time in the stables or riding, less sneaking out at night just to wander through the streets and listen to the tales the bard told at the inn.

A few months under Tante Estelle’s watchful eye, and she deems me ready to be presented on a Sunday afternoon tea. It’s tradition, and I am secretly horrified to be part of it. I hate being on display for eligible bachelors, having to pretend to care what they thought of me, trying to look enthusiastic about marriage.

After a few weeks, Tante Estelle announces the match she made for me: Cain. I should have realized it, I should have, and I manage not to shout at her. Cain merely looks at me with a smile, and I feel fear as he looks at me. Does he know I have seen him at night? “I think we have much to talk about,” he says, giving my hand a very proper kiss, as if I am a young woman of worth. His voice is deeper than I expect, and his smile is proper but doesn’t stop me from thinking him a robber bridegroom, just like in the tales.

“We do?”

“Evenings,” he murmurs as he stood up, “are a very dangerous time. Perhaps you should be installed in my household for your protection. There are a great many bandits in the area, you realize. Even the orphanage may be at risk.”

Tante Estelle is ecstatic, but I feel sick. She makes all the arrangements while I stand there, numb. This can’t happen. I won’t let it. I’ve seen him with his wicked looking blade, I’ve seen him crouching like a thief. He is a robber, and I cannot stomach such a thing. I don’t know the man, but what I do know of him, I don’t like.

I am bundled up that evening, ready to be shipped to him like a parcel. I slip from the room unnoticed; Tante Estelle is too busy directing things and being gleefully in charge. _Dear God, this should not be so,_ I think, remembering all the grisly tales I’ve heard at the inn. Robbers taking brides lead to the girls’ grisly deaths. I don’t plan on being on of those silly girls waiting to be gutted and eaten.

I dress in my barn clothes and steal from the house. Let Tante Estelle make excuses. It was _her_ match, after all. Let her tell Cain some sob story. As long as I’m still alive, it doesn’t matter to me.

Cain falls into step with me, and it startles me badly. “I thought you might try to run. You never looked happy at her tea times.” I don’t know what to say to that, so I remain silent and keep walking. I don’t even know where I’m going. It’s not in the direction of the inn, just a random direction. No one bothers stable boys walking at night, after all. “Say something,” Cain asks me, sounding almost concerned for me.

I don’t plan on falling into that trap. “What do you want me to say?” I ask him, stalling for time. I have a small knife in these clothes, a simple pack with a blanket and some dried foods, a few coins I’ve managed to scrounge up and another shirt if this one gets dirty. This is it. In the stories, travelers can survive with their wits if they try hard enough. I don’t have the book smarts the way other girls do, but I know how to use the knife, I know horses and that’s a skill I can use rather than selling my body. Nothing good happens to those girls in the stories, though they’re probably just moral tales more than true history.

He stops me with a hand on my arm, and doesn’t let me go even when I stare at it pointedly. That always works in stories. I take hold of my hidden knife but don’t draw it yet. “Are you that opposed to marriage to me?”

I’m opposed to marriage in general, but no one understands that. It’s evil in my heart that makes me say such things according to Tante Estelle. But I think anything she disagrees with gets the evil label. “I don’t know you,” I tell him coolly.

“Marriages are made even so,” he tells me. “I’ve seen you. At night, wandering.”

Fine, since he brought it up. I have my knife clutched in hand, and he doesn’t seem to be carrying one now. I don’t fool myself into thinking I’m safe. “And I’ve seen you. With a knife. Outside those fine houses across town.”

“There have been thieves in town.” I stare at him, hand tight on my knife. He still hasn’t let me go yet, and I’m very aware of that fact. But I know there are soft places on a man that will get him to scream and fall to the ground, and I will do whatever it takes to stay safe.

He finally understands what I think of him, and he throws his head back with laughter. “My dear, _I’m_ not the thief.”

“Of course you would say that.”

His eyes shine in the dark, little fires bright in his face. I will allow that he is handsome. I don’t feel the pitter patter of my heart the way the bard says women feel when they look on handsome men. But then, most of those girls are idiots and simply wait to be rescued from thieves or bandits. “I try to stop them. I’m part of the town watch. How else to catch the thieves but to creep about where they might be?” Cain turns me so that we face the orphanage. “Perhaps you can help me, then.”

This must be a trap. Churchgoing men esteemed in the town don’t ask for help from foundling girls raised in orphanages. I’m not stupid, not at all. “This cannot be so, this should not be so,” I find myself saying aloud.

He smiles, laughter in his bright eyes. “If you heed the old tales, then you understand why I need the help. Robbers are in packs, and I am but one man. You aren’t a simpering chit like the others. You see things.”

“I’m a foundling,” I blurt out. Foundlings don’t do well in tales, either.

Cain nods. “So was I, once. My parents took me, raised me as their own. I am grateful for their care, so I protect them and their friends. I will find these robbers, put them to justice.” He starts directing us to the orphanage. “It isn’t safe at night.”

I want to tell him I can protect myself, but I’m small. Stealth and surprise are my best weapons. I let go of my knife so he won’t see that I have it. “I suppose you want me to believe I’m safe with you.”  
“I’d like it if you did,” he tells me. He laughs when I remain silent. “Well, we will learn more about each other, will we not?”

I almost wish I buried my knife in his throat. But that would be difficult, given how much taller he is. I don’t trust him. I don’t. _This cannot be so, this will not be so,_ I think.

He returns to the orphanage and Tante Estelle is scandalized, of course. Cain tells her it was my idea, to thwart the bandits in the streets. None would know I’m to be bride then. I bristle at his words, the way he makes it sound like I want this marriage. Tante Estelle looks so proud, though. I don’t want to hurt her, even though sometimes she makes me so angry. She tries her hardest by us, I know that. She just doesn’t know my heart, so she calls it evil. She knows her lessons and her books, those things I don’t think I’ll ever know well. A last hug, then she gives me to Cain. I remember now why she irritates me so.

His home is quiet, and I don’t see evidence of parents. He stays in the drawing room as I wander through the halls, looking at everything. The tales always speak of basements, locked doors, tower rooms. I check these all, but there are no locked doors or tower rooms, and the basement is empty of suspicious things. I even check the stables, and I’m glad to see the horses are well cared for. If he abused them, I wouldn’t even play along with this silly game of his. I don’t see what he’s playing at, and that bothers me.

Cain is at the stable door, watching me move. “What?” I ask irritably.

“Come hunt with me,” he says, eyes bright. I think on my knife, and it’s so small compared to the wicked one he has strapped to his leg. “I have another for you,” he tells me, seeing what I’m looking at.

“You would trust me with it?” I ask him tartly.

He laughs at me, and I want to lunge at him. I’ve been laughed at so long and so much, and this stranger laughing at me makes me want to hurt him for it. Cain tosses the knife at my feet, watches as I take it up and test it against my finger. It’s sharp, well crafted, not as heavy as it looks. “It’s special,” he tells me. Without explaining, he beckons. “Let’s go.”

I don’t know his meaning for _hunt,_ and that worries me. I remain silent as I follow him, knife tight in hand. He’s not holding his. I don’t know what this means. I don’t want to know what this means. This cannot be so. He’s a thief. He’s a robber. He’s like the tales the bard tells at the inn. He isn’t what he says he is. But I must have proof, or everyone will think me a liar. I’m a foundling and a girl. No one will listen if I don’t have proof.

We stalk the streets of the town, and I watch him as much as I watch the streets. When shadows move oddly, we both start toward them, both slinking along like part of the night. I don’t see when he pulls out his knife; he moves too silently like this, too much like a robber or an animal. I don’t like it. When he smiles now, his teeth look too sharp, too deadly. I don’t like that it’s just us here now, us and the shadows.

This cannot be so, this should not be so.

But he doesn’t lunge at me. He throws the knife, pinning a thief to the wall. It’s a boy that had visited Tante Estelle’s tea times, always looking so proper. I never would have guessed it of him, but he holds a diamond necklace in hand. I am stunned.

Cain looks different. His eyes are the same, the fiery blazing eyes that trouble me so. His skin is still as dark as night. His nose and mouth look more like a snout, as if he is a cross between man and beast. He leans close to the thief, jaws snapping and snarling, eyes shining bright. “You know the penalty for thievery here.”

The thief breaks down in howls and tears, and Cain looks over to me. “A present for my bride,” he says, voice sounding inhuman. “You may do the honors.”

I cannot speak as I step forward, his wicked looking knife in my hand. I slice off the boy’s hand easily, though it hadn’t seemed sharp enough to cut through bone when I tested it in the stable. The boy howls in pain and fury, hand and diamond necklace falling to the ground. Cain lets him run off, and I look at him. “What are you?” I ask, voice steady. There are no tales about his kind, I’m sure. Not any that the bard knows.

“Justice,” he replies, voice gravelly. “I told you. I’m not the thief.”

I watch as his face returns to normal. My knife no longer seems as wickedly sharp. “And this?” I ask, holding up the knife, then reaching out to touch his nose and lips with my other hand. I feel him smile beneath my fingers.

“I prayed to be able to grant justice in this town. This was my answer.”

“So you aren’t the thief. But you creep about like one.”

“As do you,” he pointed out. He held out a hand to me. “Join me.”

This would be _my_ decision, not Tante Estelle’s. No one else was here, no one else forcing me along. I can deny him this, turn my back on his odd form and voice, eyes burning like stars in his dark face. I can take one of his horses and ride off into the night and keep to my original plan of running away.

Or I can stay. I can hold this charmed knife and look on his strange shape. I can creep about at night, listening to stories or hunting the streets for those that break the laws. I can be more than someone’s brood mare locked away in a fine house to be looked at.

“It cannot be so, it should not be so,” I tell him as I take his hand.

“But it is,” he assures me, and kisses my hand in that proper courtly manner. “It is so and it will be so and we can do this together.”

We leave the necklace where it lay, still in the thief’s palm. The boy had run off, and his screams alerted the house staff. I can hear them coming.

We creep out into the night, wicked blades in hand. We are more than what we seem, then. It cannot be so, it should not be so.

But it is.


End file.
